Back in the Kitchen!

I'm back!

It's been a fairly gruelling 10 months of moving to our new home but we're finally in! These past couple of months have been spent reluctantly putting down the knives and spatulas, picking up hammers and saws and getting the place ready to live in. A lot of work was needed, especially on the kitchen, but that did mean that we had the opportunity to build a kitchen for cooking and entertaining that we would really enjoy spending time in. All that time spent seems worth at least a brief blog post so here it is, a summary of our kitchen makeover.

On our first look around we were impressed with the space, but not a lot else. Lots of storage for gadgets, plenty of work tops, a utility room, natural light and all the basics we needed to build a great kitchen. What we didn't like was the horrible wallpaper, the cold tiled floor, the plastic work tops, the ugly brown wall tiles, the old appliances and the style of the doors and fittings.

So, off came the wall paper and on went the white kitchen paint...

up came the tiles and down went laminate slate effect flooring. It's warmer and softer underfoot and far more aesthetically pleasing.

Off came the plastic surfaces and on went solid black granite...

down came the ugly tiles and up went black brick effect ones to match the granite surfaces...

out with the old appliances and in with new shiny and better ones...

and off came the old doors and up went new solid oak ones.

Then we changed a couple of light fittings, put up some blinds rather than net curtains and probably most importantly swapped the stainless steel sink for a deep Belfast sink (once you've had one of these you'll never go back).

Now we're all set to start cooking again and I'm itching to get back to experimenting and blogging. I've been collecting a few gadgets and ideas and have various projects lined up ready to make a start at. Another thing we're fortunate enough to have is a nice big (and overgrown) garden. I'm sure in the coming months and years this is going to feature a fair bit on the blog as I try and hijack as much of it as possible for growing food.

It should be... interesting. As a city boy my experience of gardening doesn't extend much further than watering the basil plants on my window sill.

Charity

I've just performed my good deed for the year. I usually like to get these out the way reasonably early on to allow me the rest of the year to focus on being selfish.

I'm one of those people that’s usually quite wary of giving to charities (I have my reasons), but I think I may have actually found a way I can help people with minimal effort, little risk and at no cost to myself. I was sent a link by a friend of mine, Mr Matt Holland, to join Kiva; a non-profit organisation that arranges loans to small businesses and individuals in developing countries. The full amount you lend is repaid over time and you can withdrawal that money or put it towards another loan.

It might all sound a bit too good to be true, it did to me at first, but it was when the first instalment of Matt's loan came back to him that I took interest and decided that this might actually be something I could get into. So I browsed my way through the list of borrowers, found one that I felt most comfortable with and made my $25 donation.

I've chosen to donate money to Jeanette in Bolivia who is requesting a loan for a rotisserie oven. I decided that I wanted to put money into the food sector (of course), but on searching through the list of borrowers I found that this mainly consisted of people who ran existing stalls and grocery stores that wanted a loan to purchase stock for their business. I found the idea of purchasing hardware to allow Jeanette to break away from a life of making sweaters to start her own food business more exciting, it appealed to me.

"Jeannette is married and has two children. They live in a rented home in the District of San Martín in the city of La Paz.

Jeannette only has a high school education, so now she sells sweaters and jackets at the street fairs. She has to leave her little ones behind so that she can work more than 10 hours selling her products. Jeannette also generates income by selling food from the doorstep of her house in the evenings. For this reason, she is requesting a loan to buy a chicken rotisserie (for preparing roasted chickens, in other words, a small oven that slowly rotates the chickens while they cook so that they develop a unique and delicious flavor). This will help to improve her earnings. Her husband does not earn much money working as an assistant at an auto repair shop."

So, now I hope to hear back from Kiva when Jeanette receives her oven, and as she profits from the loan they have provided the money should slowly start trickling back to me. I intend to re-loan it to another borrower in the future.

In search of foods

Another post to keep the blog alive whilst I faff about with the small job of building somewhere to live.

I go to a fair bit of trouble to experience different foods. As a foodie (basically a kind way of describing a particular species of geek) authenticity and attention to flavour detail is very important to me, hence when I travel I grab every opportunity to sample local produce and visit delicatessens. As any good foodie will bore you, using local food is a positive thing. It encourages small independent business, keeps traditional production methods alive, ensures freshness and is often prepared with greater care. Healthy competition amongst local businesses drives up the quality of the product.

In Rome I was able to hunt down a few delicatessens. The best (in my opinion) was probably the most touristy, but that did mean that they spoke perfect English which came in handy for someone whose best Italian is limited to nods, grunts and hand gestures. This is located right by the Trevi Fountain, a close runner up was at the back of the square in front of the Pantheon.

Whether or not the charcuterie on display here was genuinely Tuscan boar or Salami from Felino is hard to say. The only way to be sure is to look for the PDO logo on foods that have fortunate enough to have been awarded that status. One thing is for sure - it wasn’t thrown together in a factory in Leeds and supplied to ASDA. This Tiroler spec came from a farmer’s market in Austria.

Farmer’s markets are an essential stop off wherever you are in Europe. These Roman artichokes are from a market in the Piazza Navona in Rome.

Hands down the best I have been to was in the old town in Nice just off La Promenade d’Anglais. Those of us who have experienced only supermarket versions of a vegetable are likely to be left open mouthed at the contrast in colour and size of that at a market stall. In case you’re wondering what the yellow things next to the pomegranates are in the left of the photo, they’re lemons.

Bakeries are a definite must wherever you are in the world as only local expertise will ensure that what you are eating is the real deal. Pictured is a bakery sign in Salzburg, Austria.

And if you want to try something as specialist as the famous Sacher Torte there’s only one place to go...

Nice, Rome, Vienna... don’t I sound like the worldly travelling food blogger? The fact is you don’t have to look so far afield for great food. What we consider to be an incredible experience when we go abroad is everyday fare for the people that live there. A holiday to Cornwall might not sound quite as exotic as Venice, but I’m willing to bet that the quality of the fish caught in a small fishing village such as Mousehole in Cornwall is easily on a par with anything they lay out in the Rialto fish market.

Here I feel duty bound to my Cornish friends to point out that this is what a real Cornish pasty looks like, and that it doesn’t come served cold in plastic wrapping.

Travelling around your own country gives you a bit more time to explore a little deeper into the food side of things, after all you’re not trying to cram as much culture into your limited time away. Here we were able to witness locally grown, freshly picked apples being pressed to make cider at Healey Cider farm.

I would suggest that anyone just takes a look around their local area. I think most people would be surprised at what is on offer. I have a particular addiction to Springs smoked foods, only 15 minutes drive from my house. An award winning business since the 60s and situated out in the West Sussex countryside where you could never chance upon it accidentally, they specialise in smoked fish and poultry. There is simply no supermarket comparison whatsoever anywhere in the world.

Another thing about living in Sussex is that we farm a lot of sheep and goats locally, and where there’s sheep there’s a) lamb and b) cheese and it’s all of the highest quality. Local farm shops supply some fantastic seasonal produce. The shop front pictured belongs to a local food shop in Steyning. Last time I was there I bought locally picked wild chanterelle mushrooms.

Also with the benefit of my local food knowledge I know how to source my ingredients and play to their strengths in my cooking. Recently I made a recipe using fresh squid. I know that the best fish round here comes in to Newhaven (usually to a fish monger’s near the lifeboat station), and that is where my local fish monger sourced my squid from.

I am as equally proud of our local produce in the South of England as I am in awe of the lemons on sale in the Piazza Navona farmers market and the sun dried tomatoes that only taste like the ones in Nice. To me food is as much a part of wherever you are in the world as the architecture, the climate the language and the culture. As for the beer, well that’s another voyage of discovery altogether...

A bit on chickens...

I was going to post all this in relation to some article on how to butcher a chicken or different techniques for roasting chickens, but I'll save them for another day. For some reason I've come across loads of chicken references this morning in the news, social networking sites and email, so I'm posting it now. That and I haven't put anything up for ages because I've been busy building a kitchen. More on that soon as well.

Humans have been keeping chickens for a long time now. Over 3000 years ago geese and pidgeons and ducks were being bred in China. Before that though prehistoric man was capturing junglefowl and raising it for food, the red junglefowl from Southeast Asia still looks very similar to it's modern domestic cousin. Chickens were mainly bred for cock fighting, and in the 16th century they were introduced to America from Europe, around the same time the turkey made its way Eastward. In the 19th century cockfighting was outlawed in America and Great Britain and Canada, however poultry fanciers still used to raise chickens for exhibition purposes. The ancient Chinese and Egyptians already had the whole artificial incubation thing down but the meat and egg side of things really took off in the latter half of the 19th Century when it hit a more commercial scale. In the 1930s new scientific developments helped the industry leap forward and during WW2 food shortages led to even greater interest in poultry farming.

Generally, chickens raised for eggs are called laying hens and chickens raised for meat are called broilers. Obviously, as only female hens are any use for laying, male chicks are killed by CAK (Controlled Atmosphere Killing, basically gassing) and processed for pet food.

On a lighter note, welfare standards are on the up for the survivors. We're now up to almost 50% of all eggs sold in the UK coming from free range hens, and by free range thats no more than 1000 birds per hectare. Broilers too are doing a bit better, but the problem with keeping happier chickens is that not only do you have to spend a bit more on looking after them but you have to look after them for longer. Free range and organic chickens will grow at a slower and steadier rate and usually take about 8 weeks to reach a suitable weight for slaughter. Personally, I think it's worth the wait - I would rather eat a bird without hock burns on it legs, caused by the chicken's legs not growing at a rate to support its body and falling and wading in its own amonia and waste.

It's a discouraging buiness to enter in to given the profit margins, so next time you see an organic, corn fed, free range chicken in the supermarket I suggest paying that little bit more for it and make it go a bit further by buying 2 and butchering them yourself. Not only does the meat taste and look so much better, but you're doing your bit for chicken welfare.

Fried Squid in Sichuan Sauce

I thought I'd finish off my little 5 day Chinese meal event with something a bit special. So I managed to hunt down a recipe that I was able to adapt slightly to use a bit of everything I've been posting about for the past week. Obviously I'm biased, but I think the Sichuan sauce may just be the tastiest sauce I have ever made.

My first job was to get to work on these 2 beautiful squid that my local fishmonger went to the trouble of obtaining specially for me, fresh off the boats at Newhaven Harbour and caught somewhere out in the English Channel.

Here's how to prepare them:

The first cut needs to be across and just under the eye. This chops off the tentacles and you'll be able to easily pop out the beak once separated. Trim the 2 long tentacles to the same length as the rest.

Next pinch the 2 fins together. You can see under the fin where the skin is very thin and rolls away easily.

Once you get your fingers under the skin here both fins and the skin easily all pull away from the rest of the squid in one piece.

Now the messy bit. Gently tug the head away from the body. The insides should follow in one long string.

Finally, pull out the quill.

You may need to go back in and pull out any left over insides this failed to emerge with the head. But when you're done give everything a thorough wash out under the cold tap and you'll be left with neatly prepared and ready to use squid.

Ingredients

2 tbsp Ketchup (see blog post from 06/02/2012 for recipe)

2 tbsp Black Bean Sauce (see blog post from 03/04/2012 for recipe)

2 tbsp Hoisin Sauce (see blog post from 05/04/2012 for recipe)

1 tbsp Plum Sauce (see blog post from 04/03/2012 for recipe)

2 tsp Chilli Paste (see blog post from 31/03/2012 for recipe)

2 tbsp Dark Soy Sauce

2 tbsp Dry Sherry

150ml Chicken Stock

2 tsp Chinese Black Vinegar

2 cloves Garlic

5cm of Fresh Ginger

2 tbsp Groundnut Oil

2 tsp Sesame Oil

I finely grated the garlic and ginger and put them to one side whilst I combined everything else apart from the 2 oils and the chicken stock in a bowl.

Then I heated the groundnut oil in a pan and fried the ginger and garlic for 1 minute...

...before adding the stock and the bowl mixture and leaving to simmer.

Back to my squid... I sliced it up into rings and chopped the tentacles up into twos.

Then coated it in plain flour...

...before frying in batches in some very hot groundnut oil, removing with a slotted spoon into a bowl lined with kitchen towel.

Here's the important bit about cooking squid - Squid goes very chewy and un-appetising if it is cooked for more than 3 minutes, unless you cook it for 0ver 20 minutes which will be long enough to break the proteins back down and tenderise the meat again. So as a rule cook squid for 2 minutes or 25 minutes and you'll be guaranteed soft tasty squid. 2 minutes is plenty of time to crisp up the flour to a golden brown and cook the squid in this recipe.

The fried squid was absolutely delicious on its own. It truly is unbeatable when prepared fresh like this. However, I managed to resist eating all of it then and there and instead poured over my Sichuan sauce.

I then proceeded to sit in my own little private heaven for about 20 minutes. This truly was worth every second of time and every ounce of effort I put into making this dish.

Peking Duck with Hoisin Sauce

Hoisin sauce never tasted this good until I made it. Perhaps I just like it a little extra garlicy, also I don’t very often cook with molasses. Having made a few Chinese recipes now I’ll be using them a lot more. This is supposed to be made with black bean paste. That’s not black bean sauce, black bean paste is a paste made from fermented mung beans. I couldn’t find the stuff anywhere even though I went to some trouble looking. As it turned out miso paste, which is far more readily available, made an excellent substitute.

Ingredients
1 Red Chili
2 cloves Garlic
75ml Dark Soy Sauce
3 tbsp Molasses
4 tsp Sesame Oil
4 tsp Rice Wine Vinegar
100g Miso Paste

Crush the garlic and the chilli into a paste. Use a pestle and mortar for this. I have 2 but they’re living in boxes somewhere at the moment whilst we move so I had to try and make a paste using the back of a spoon in a bowl. There really is a reason that even with all the high tech gadgets we have in the kitchen today we still smash things between 2 stones, there’s nothing does the job quite as well.

Add the vinegar and the oil and mix into chilli and garlic, then add the miso bit by bit to mix it all up into a smooth paste.

Next add the soy sauce, again bit by bit to make a smooth sauce.

And finally carefully heat the molasses to make them pour easier and add them to make a velvety smooth and thick sauce. I say carefully heat them, if you're just going to chuck them in the microwave for a bit then be ready to clean hot sticky molasses off the inside of your microwave.

This makes the perfect dipping sauce, it’s one of the most moreish things I’ve made!

Or...

Ingredients
4 tbsp Hoisin Sauce
1 tbsp Molasses
1 tbsp Runny Honey
1 tbsp Light Soy Sauce
1 1/2 cm Fresh Ginger
1 tbsp Mirin
1/2 tsp Chinese 5 Spice

And then this duck, that I’ve prepared by removing the neck flap and blanching the skin by pouring boiling water straight from the kettle all over, then gently patting dry with paper towels.

I minced the ginger and combined all the ingredients together in a saucepan and brought to the boil, then reduced for about 2 minutes to make Peking Sauce. I brushed the duck all over, inside and out, only using half of the sauce.

Then roasted at 200degC for 45 minutes over a rack to allow the fat to drain away, re-glazed again with the remaining sauce and roasted for a further 45 minutes.

I served it with the remainder the hoisin sauce to dip the duck in at the table. Of course you could always serve this with the classic pancakes and some sliced cucumber and spring onions.